Sleep as scarce as generators

This home at the corner of Stoneleigh Road and Cook Street suffered serious tree damage, including to a 100-year-old oak; some branches caused serious damage to power lines and to a motor vehicle, a not uncommon storm story. Melissa McKeon photo Sean Smith is a little bright-eyed Monday morning, compared to the past three days since a state of emergency was declared during the Dec. 11-12 ice storm.

Smith, an EMT with the Holden Fire Department, has been doing double duty. On Sunday night, he got some sleep before reporting back in. Everyone else at the department is in the same boat.

"Some people haven't gone home," Smith says.

One of those is Holden Fire Department Capt. Alex Belisle. He's been sleeping at the station — when sleep is possible. He calculates five hours at a time is about all he's gotten since the crisis began; sometimes it was as little as two hours.

The crisis around them is mirrored in the array of emergency calls, each with its own white card lined up on the counter — 175 emergencies since Thursday, as of Tuesday morning, and more keep coming in.

National Guard crews help clear brush in "the maze," off Main Street in central Holden. Joyce Roberts photo There's a close affinity between the Fire Department and Department of Public Works workers; many of them are on-call firefighters, a situation that often benefits the town. When on call firefighters work for the DPW, they're in town when a fire or medical emergency happens and can answer the call.

That's because DPW personnel (that's seven full-timers) are out straight helping with water, sewer, and road crises caused by the storm.

Those crises are legion, as the dominoes fell. No power means no pumps at pumping stations — both for water and sewer. Some pumps have had to be operated manually. Others are running by generators (one was commandeered from the Hess Station downtown).

DPW Director Jim Shuris, just three months on the job, is having his baptism by fire — or rather, by water and sewer. He's found the silver lining — for himself, and for residents.

"This brings out the best in everybody," he said. "What's nice about this for me is I got to work one-on-one with the people in the field."

But, he admits, his workers, like pumps and generators, are getting burnt out.

"These guys are working 24 hours a day," says Shuris.

Down at Wachusett Regional High School, HMLD's Larry Josti is getting a well-deserved hot meal with some fellow line workers — two of them from Chicopee's power company, imported for help. Josti — and his fellow line workers — has been doing double shifts. In between, workers who live in the area can't even look forward to going home and relaxing. For Josti, home is a cold, dark house in Rutland, where power isn't close to being up and running.

At the police station, Chief George Sherrill says he has some workers who've been doing nearly 20-hour shifts.

"But not behind the wheel," Sherrill says.

Those less-alert hours are spent at the station, not on the road or out on calls. Many of the extra hours have involved answering the hundreds of calls that required three or more Police Department personnel to respond to. Many callers just needed to talk to a live human being.

HMLD administrative staff workers' schedules, like the line workers, have been long, and mostly spent fielding the inevitable questions about when power will be restored to their neighborhood. There's no good answer to those questions. In the basement where the Emergency Operations Center is, the walls are lined with sheet after sheet listing every street in town in black; next to a few streets is a red note: "ON."

By close of day Monday, Town Manager and Light Department Manager Brian Bullock said 50 percent of the town is listed as "ON."

Workers sleep, sometimes at the light department, when they can. Some go home to snatch a few hours of sleep; if they're lucky, their street is listed as "ON," or, at the very least, the wood stove is fired up.

Assistant Light Department Manager Jacquie Kelley is helping out with the phone calls at HMLD; so is Recreation Director Denise Morano, whose office on Highland Street is as cold and dark and silent as the homes in the area.

At the WRHS cafeteria, Lynda Shamlian and her son Derek, a sixth grader at Mountview, have been there, on and off, since Friday morning, since the two and cafeteria director Nancy Hasselman and Joanne Chapin, opened up. They're doing night shifts mostly, Lynda and Derek, along with several others; those shifts are 13 or 14 hours. They're serving a hot meal to cold people and the other tired workers on their 10-hour (or longer) shifts, and with a cheerful smile. Like everyone else, they'd go home to not-quite-warm homes.

At the warming stations, the Senior Center and WRHS, weary residents are sitting and talking, having a hot meal or a cup of coffee or tea, or waiting for the "quiet hours" at the Senior Center to get some rest. Some have come in just to get warm for awhile or, at the high school, to get a meal and a hot shower.

Jefferson resident Dave Thompson, along with his family, was at the high school to take a shower. Thompson said he figured if they were going to spend any time at their home, it should be Monday night, when the day's temperatures had been mild. On previous nights, he'd scored something of a coup — a hotel room as close as Sturbridge. Others had only found hotels as close as Framingham; some declined those offers and just stayed home, hoping the lights would go on.

Bracing for the next blow

"Just pray," is part of Shuris' advice.

Shuris is thinking not just of the crisis ongoing, but any that might be to come as the region that was hit with the most devastating weather event since the Blizzard of '78 cleans up . . . and holds its breath for what might be to come.

"Clear as much as you can from the right of way, and just pray," Shuris says.

You don't want to be plowing brush."

The town is advising residents to get cleared brush off the sidewalks. Many don't need to be told to get it out of the road, in order to get out of their neighborhood. Some are finding it difficult — the greater the diameter, the heavier the load. Shuris' fear is that much of that load might still be in the streets when measurable snow hits, with all predictions being that will happen Tuesday or Wednesday, with more snow in the forecast for Friday.